General Nintendo

It’s no secret that in Call of Duty: World at War, gamers can take aim at dogs. Being able to do that alone has caused Breanna Lucci, president of the Animal Rights Club at the Academy of Notre Dame in Massachusetts, to rally her fellow classmates. She fears that having the ability to kill dogs in Call of Duty could somehow cause others to kill dogs in real life.

Lucci recently started a petition in her school to make others aware of the dog killings in World at War after watching her brother play the game. So far, the petition has over 100 signatures. Lucci is hoping to send the petition to Activision.

“Killing dogs as a form of entertainment…over and over again. That’s one of the objects of the game. Parents need to know what they are buying their kids. Killing animals should not be a form of entertainment…My little 12-pound Pomeranian, Winnie the Pooh, is sitting next to him [her brother], and I’m thinking, ‘This looks horrible!’ My brother is a sweetheart. He won’t be killing dogs after playing. But some people might.”

“This event will unveil and showcase the latest in outstanding entertainment, creativity and innovation. Everyone interested in the computer and video game industry will be in Los Angeles this June.” – Michael Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA

According to the ESA, 90% of available space for E3 has been sold. More than 100 exhibitors will be attending the event to feature their games and roughly 40,000 people should be at the exhibition.

In February, it was announced that Nintendo was forming Project Sora, a new subsidiary under Nintendo. Not too much was said about the type of game that the company will be developing, and details are still scarce. However, Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai is promising that the studio’s upcoming game will be “an experience like nothing seen before.”

Project Sora is still looking for members to join the team, and in fact, there was a whole page in Famitsu that stated the development team is interested in hiring new employees.

“Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo are thinking together, and a new project has been launched. In order to expand the range of what video games can provide to the world, we are receiving full support from Nintendo to create something that Nintendo can’t create by themselves.” – Project Sora Famitsu ad

The latest buzz surrounding GDC 2009 is that three (four, technically) Nintendo characters will be at this year’s conference this year. The rumor specifically involves Link, Kid Icarus, and the Ice Climbers. Games wouldn’t necessarily be shown – hints to future projects, listing of the characters, or possibly more would be shared.

I do want to stress that this rumor should be taken with a huge grain of salt. In the past, some rumors have proved to be valid but in this case it’s really unclear. I would expect Nintendo to do something like this at E3, but not really GDC…Who knows. We’ll have to just wait and see. Just remember to have a bit of skepticism in mind and don’t set yourselves up for disappointment!

“There was an era when Nintendo was going in the direction of doing the same things other companies did. The more we competed with new companies entering the market, the more we started acting similar to them. But is being number one in that competition the same as being number one with the general public? That’s the question we had. Entertainment is something that you have to look at the world with a very wide eye as you create it. I always thought that, but there were a few years where I was unable to get off other people’s trends. It was a dilemma in my mind.

I was endlessly fascinated with 3D worlds, but what with all the issues I had to tinker with in terms of rendering and processing speed, it got to the point where I didn’t know who was making the games any longer.

This is a job where you have a plan and you polish it endlessly while getting help from others. If Nintendo’s games fail to stand out as games that aren’t made that way proliferate, then it shows that the creation process is for nothing, which made me very sad. That was especially obvious during the GameCube era; Nintendo titles were hardly even discussed by the [non-gaming] general public back then.” – Shigeru Miyamoto

The GameCube era wasn’t actually too terrible in terms of quality content and innovation. Chibi Robo, Geist, and Pikmin were all created during that the console’s lifecycle. In terms of originality, we haven’t seen too many cult classics from Nintendo like we did during the GameCube era.